1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adaptive document display apparatus and method, and more particularly, to an adaptive document displaying apparatus and method which can adaptively convert a document according to the screen size of a device that is to display the document.
2. Description of the Related Art Since most of Internet contents are created for a personal computer (PC) environment, there exist various problems when the Internet contents are used in a television (TV) environment. For example, while the screen size of a TV is larger than that of a PC, the viewing distance (for example, 2.5 m) between a user and the TV may be almost ten times greater than the viewing distance (for example, 30 cm) between the user and the PC.
Therefore, the screen size of the TV perceived by the user is smaller than that of the PC. For this reason, when the user views Internet contents on the TV, the readability of the Internet contents deteriorates. Generally, users remain passive when watching TV. That is, the users hardly manipulate a TV while watching entertaining contents on the TV. However, when the users use the TV to search for desired information, they are required to take active attitudes which are contradictory to their usual attitudes toward the TV.
In order to address the problem of deterioration of readability due to a longer viewing distance between a user and a TV than that between the user and a PC, a zoomable interface may be provided to enable the user to enlarge a web page and view the enlarged web page. Using the zoomable interface, the user can enlarge all or part of the web page or the font size of text and view the enlarged web page or text.
When the entire web page is enlarged, the user may be able to view all contents of the enlarged web page. However, since the entire web page is enlarged, it is difficult to identify the entire layout of the web page on one screen. In addition, the user has to scroll through the web page or reduce the web page through a zoom-out action in order to view unseen contents. Furthermore, when the web page is enlarged to an enlargement rate greater than a predetermined enlargement rate, it is difficult to view images and text on one screen.
When part of the web page is enlarged, it is difficult to display certain contents in the TV environment. In addition, since desired information cannot be easily found in the full-screen state with reduced readability, various regions of the web page must be enlarged.
In this regard, a method of converting a web page according to attributes of a device, which is to display the web page, and a user's profile in order to enable the user to easily find desired information is required.